Proto-Norse phonology
Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time (as with any language), the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged. Consonants # assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was before a plain velar, and probably before a labial-velar consonant. # Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor , the phoneme was probably no longer a fricative. It eventually disappeared except word-initially. # , and were allophones of , and , and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened (geminated), and also after a nasal consonant. Word-finally, , and were devoiced and merged with , , . # The exact realisation of the phoneme , traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse (not to be confused with the phonetic symbol ), is unclear. While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic (as in Gothic), it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as or , tending towards a trill in the later period. The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the millennium. Vowels The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier had been lowered to , and unstressed and had developed into and . Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels. | |} # had developed from through a''-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic . # The long nasal vowels , and occurred only before . Their presence was noted in the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise, and they survive in modern Elfdalian. # All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels and were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into (triggering ''u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to . # The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when or followed, as a result of i''-mutation: #* > , > #* > , > (later , ) #* > (later or ) #* did not originally occur before or , but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably , later . # Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong . # Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, ''u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels. Diphthongs At least the following diphthongs were present: , , , . # was later rounded to due to u''-mutation. # eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong . This was preserved in Old Gutnish, but simplified to a long rising or in other areas. # As occurred exclusively in environments with ''i-mutation, its realisation was probably fronted . This then developed further into , which then became . Accent Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable. Several scholars have proposed that Proto-Norse also had a separate pitch accent, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian, which in turn have evolved into the stød of modern Danish.Kock, Axel, 1901: Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung. Quellen und Forschungen 87. StrassburgHamp, Eric P., 1959: Final syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian accent system. I: Studia Linguistica 13. S.29–48. Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto-Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress, marked by pitch, eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction.Riad, Tomas, 1998: The origin of Scandinavian tone accents. I: Diachronica XV(1). S.63–98. Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction did not appear until the Old Norse period.Kristoffersen, Gjert, 2004: The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop 'Typology of Tone and Intonation', Cascais, Portugal 1–3 April 2004..Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61–77.Öhman, Sven, 1967: Word and sentence intonation: a quantitative model. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report, KTH, 2–3. 20–54, 1967., 8(2–3):20–54.http://www.speech.kth.se/qpsr/pdf/1967/1967_8_2-3_020-054.pdfBye, Patrick, 2004: Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent. Kluwer Academic Publishers. References External links * Category:Language phonologies